Impressions: G-Force
By Shaun Hatton - June 9th, 2009
Upon finding out that a movie called G-Force was about to be released, my first instinct was to shudder; I couldn’t handle the thought that yet another favourite childhood cartoon was going to be turned into a Summer Blockbuster with no regard for the source material. Imagine my relief when I discovered this G-Force has nothing to do with Battle of the Planets.
Instead, the upcoming 3D flick from producer Jerry “Gratuitous Explosions” Bruckheimer is a kid-friendly movie about a team of very special guinea pigs that discover that they alone can save the world from technology gone awry.
The game has players taking control of Darwin (a guinea pig voiced by Sam Rockwell) and a housefly named Mooch. Together the two must traverse a variety of sometimes puzzling environments while fighting for their lives against household appliances that are bent on their destruction. Not to worry: Darwin is a resourceful little fella and, armed with the latest in high-tech guinea pig-sized armaments, he’s about to show these rouge appliances who’s boss.
Mark Orgel, International Producer at Disney Interactive Studios introduced me to the gameplay mechanics by first demonstrating the wide array of weapons available to Darwin. He followed up by explaining that because the enemies in the game are robotic, the developers were able to pack in a lot more action than the typical kid-friendly movie tie-in. It has a lot to do with the fact that as of yet, robots still do not have rights in our society — this is also why Foot Soldiers from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were robots in the cartoon (it’s okay to show them exploding).
Somewhere along the line, Orgel also mentioned how movie games tend to not be so good, but I have learned that everyone who works on movie games says that line thousands of times.
In the case of G-Force, however, my hands-on time was full of laughs. If this game is aimed at a youth market, it should to quite well regardless of its movie tie-in affiliation (which tends to push the numbers up anyway). G-Force plays very much how a sanitized Gears of War might. The camera follows Darwin closely, the aiming controls are tight, and there’s a hell of a lot of firefights where cover must be used. Some interesting features that I was able to trigger in the preview included the use of a special laser that can be used to make enemy drones fight on your side. Additional cool features include vision-enhancing goggles, a powerful machine gun-like weapon, and the ability to send out Mooch the housefly for reconnaissance work. Controlling Mooch after running around as the adorable Darwin is a bit of a challenge. As a tiny fly, he’s able to pull off some sharp maneuvers and get through vents to access areas before Darwin can. In some instances, he has to unlock areas for Darwin. But the controls seemed a little too sensitive for the Mooch parts.
In what is seemingly different for games aimed at a younger crowd, the puzzles presented within it are solvable via different means. During my demo, most of these puzzles involved gaining access to different areas of the stage map. Clues to solve them are found in the environment, and usually through the use of one of Darwin’s many devices.
Orgel said the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game will ship with red/blue 3D glasses and that gamers will have the option of playing with that mode on. He also hinted that 3D is something that Disney Interactive Studios was taking seriously and that it’s a direction we’ll probably see in more games in the future. We chatted a bit about 3D in past games and I mentioned that the Sega Master System actually had a really cool implementation of it, but I get the feeling we won’t be seeing any expensive electronic LCD-shuttered lenses any time soon.
Perhaps the most compelling part of G-Force for me isn’t the fact that it’s fun, or that it will use 3D, or that it plays like a shooter older gamers might dig. It’s the attention to detail given to our hero, Darwin. As a guinea pig strapped with combat implements, it makes for an adorable visual. But add to that the little guinea pig quirks in the animation, and the fact that when he really gets going, he drops to all fours, and you’d have to be the Tin Man to not smile. Check out our G-Force gallery to see if you’re a robot or not.
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Looks pretty damn cool, particularly for a game geared for kids. Also, makes me miss George. :(